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Erickson joins 1,000-1,000-1,000 club

Cougars sweep Tigers in first round of 2A playoffs

By Travis Rosenau 4 min read

MORGAN - After getting her 1,000th career dig this past Thursday at home, Cedar Mountain's Kendra Erickson was able to celebrate a new milestone achievement Monday night.

With her second kill of the night in a Section 2A Volleyball Tournament first round match against Springfield, the senior reached 1,000 kills for her career and became the first-ever player in school history to have 1,000 career kills, 1,000 career digs and 1,000 career set assists.

Her performance also helped lift the No. 6-seeded Cougars to a three-set sweep of the No. 11-seeded Tigers, winning 25-14, 25-13, 25-10.

"I just feel like my hard work paid off," she said. "When I got [1,000] for all three, it just really pays off. All my hard work and I wouldn't be here and get the accomplishments without my teammates and family."

Kendra Erickson, who passed 1,000 set assists last season, finished with 12 kills, 17 set assists and 13 digs to lead the Cougars (22-7), while Reagyn Kleinschmidt had 16 kills and 13 set assists. Aubrey Steffl added 13 kills and 12 digs, while Grace Guetter had eight digs.

Springfield (10-15) was led by Harlow Moody, who had five kills and two blocks, while Kendall Krueger had four kills and eight digs and Gabriella Schenk had three kills. Delayna Johnson added three kills also for the Tigers, while Fayelynn Williams had 10 set assists, Sophie Mude had seven set assists and five digs, Belle Groebner had eight digs and Olivia Simonson had eight digs.

After Moody had Springfield up 2-0 with a kill and an ace serve, Kendra Erickson's first kill of the night got the Cougars on the board. Kleinschmidt added a kill to tie it before Sophia Erickson's block put the Cougars in front.

The Tigers led 7-5 before Kleinschmidt had a kill and Steffl had back-to-back kills to give Cedar Mountain the 8-7 lead.

Then came Kendra Erickson's milestone kill. While she had plenty of spikes during the night, this kill was a dump kill that surprised the Springfield defense by dropping in between a host of Tigers. After a timeout to celebrate the achievement, the Cougars went back to work and increased their lead to 11-7 before an attack error bring the Cougars' 6-0 run to an end.

The Cougars steadily increased their lead after that and after a kill from Simonson had the Tigers down 24-14, Steffl dumped the ball over the net for a kill and 1-0 match lead.

Kendra Erickson and Kleinschmidt kills opened the second set before Kendall Krueger got the Tigers on the board with a kill of her own. A 5-0 Cougars run followed to put Cedar Mountain up 7-1.

Moody added a pair of blocks after that to try to slow down the Cedar Mountain offense, but her second block that had Springfield down 17-8 saw her appear to injure her right ankle and cause an injury timeout. Moody was helped to the bench and unable to finish the match.

The Tigers were able to cut their deficit to 8 after that, but a couple of late attack errors gave the Cougars the set win and 2-0 match lead.

A pair of kills from Kendra Erickson, two from Steffl, one from Kleinschmidt and an ace serve from Evy Heibel helped the Cougars storm out to a 13-4 lead in Set 3. During that time on the other side of the net, Krueger had a pair of kills.

Cedar Mountain increased its lead to 20-7 after that and ended the night with a 5-0 run, getting the set and match point on an ace serve by Kendal Atkins.

The Cougars will now play at No. 3-seeded Sleepy Eye St. Mary's on Thursday night in a rematch of a game that ultimately led to St. Mary's clinching the Tomahawk Division. The Knights won the previous meeting in four sets on Oct. 1 at St. Mary's High School.

Kendra Erickson said while the Cougars played better against Springfield in Monday's playoff match, she knows the team can do better and wants to show it against St. Mary's.

"I think we can 100% do better," Kendra Erickson said. "We're all so excited to play St. Mary's and give 100% for St. Mary's because we know it's gonna be tough, but I think we're gonna win."

Kendra Erickson said her team wasn't intimidated by St. Mary's but needed to give it their all and put up a better block in this next matchup.

"Our big things are our defense and our blocking," she said. "I know that for sure we did not fix our block for St. Mary's last time and we regret not going harder against Morgan Mathiowetz."

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